This invention relates to computers having graphically-oriented user interfaces. More particularly, this invention relates to a system and method for managing graphic images on the display of such a computer.
Computer systems are known in which the operating system provides a graphic interface with the computer user. The user can run application programs, manipulate files, and perform substantially all other functions needed by the average user by manipulating graphic images on the computer's display, either by using cursor control keys and other keyboard keys or by using a cursor controlling peripheral device such as a joystick, "mouse," or track ball.
In such systems, when a program is loaded into the system it is frequently represented on the display by a small graphic image which identifies the program to the user. For example, a word processing program might be represented by a graphic image of a piece of paper having lines of text on it and a writing instrument such a pencil or quill pen writing on the page. This is particularly so if the program is running in the background--e.g., on a multi-tasking computer--but has been removed from the screen. On a multi-tasking computer, several programs can be running at once, each of which would be represented by its own graphic image.
In addition to representing loaded programs, whether running or not, by these small graphic images, graphic interfaces represent programs and data in "windows" on the display. The windows can be moved around the display by the user, who can also adjust their size. In a multi-tasking computer system, in which several different programs can be running simultaneously, each program can have several windows, including a master, or menu, window, whose location but not size is adjustable, and one or more data windows both the size and location of which can be adjusted, representing, in a word processor for example, the document or documents being worked on. Windows can overlap and obscure one another, although the user has some control over which windows appear in front of which other windows.
If the number of windows on a display becomes too great, the user may choose to remove some or all of them from the display to unclutter the display. For instance, the windows associated with a particular program may be removed, and replaced by a graphic image representing the still-running program. Alternatively, the user might choose to remove from the display only certain data windows associated with one application, in which case the windows will be replaced by one or more small graphic images representing the fact that that data is in use. These graphic images, if subject to being covered over by windows remaining on the screen, might become "lost" or forgotten by the user, but the amount of computer resources consumed by keeping the forgotten data in place when it may no longer be necessary is small. However, if a user decides to remove an entire application with all its associated windows from the screen, and those windows become covered and forgotten, a relatively large amount of computer resources might consumed in continuing to run an application program that is no longer being used. In addition, if a graphic image representing a program that is not running is covered and forgotten, a large amount of system memory might be occupied which otherwise could be used in another application.
Therefore, it would be desirable to be able to provide a graphic user interface for a computer in which representations of application programs could be placed on the display in a specified region reserved for such a purpose in which area they could be readily accessed and not so readily obscured and forgotten.
It would also be desirable to be able to provide in such an interface a facility for controlling the placement of such representations within the reserved region.